Morning arrived slowly, stretching its warmth across the hill like a lazy creature waking up. The wind wandered between the leaves of the old ash tree, carrying the scent of dew and grass. Everything felt calm. Peaceful. Almost perfect.
Which, according to Vincent, was suspicious.
He lay sprawled in the grass, staring at the sky with the solemn expression of someone contemplating the mysteries of existence… or simply refusing to get up.
"I've decided," he announced to no one in particular. "Today, I'm doing absolutely nothing. It's important to have goals."
The northern mountains rested in the distance, dark silhouettes rising like ancient guardians. They looked cold, eternal, and entirely too majestic for his taste.
"You mountains are so dramatic," he muttered. "Try being less tall sometime. It's intimidating."
He folded his arms behind his head and sighed with the exaggerated heaviness of a boy who believed the world had mistreated him personally.
Somewhere far to the west lay the capital. He couldn't see it from here, but he imagined it gleaming arrogantly behind the horizon, judging him for his lack of productivity.
"One day I'll visit you," Vincent told the invisible city. "Purely to annoy you."
The sky above shifted, brightened… and then split.
A pale blue streak cut across the clouds. Thin. Silent. Too strange to be natural.
Vincent blinked.
"…Well, that's not concerning at all."
The light vanished.The sky returned to normal.The world pretended nothing had happened.
Vincent frowned at the heavens.
"If this is a sign, I'd appreciate a clearer one. Preferably something that doesn't threaten my sanity."
He closed his eyes, fully intending to resume his deep and meaningful inactivity.
And that was when a projectile struck him square in the face.
A dull thump.A brief moment of betrayal.A very offended groan.
"Who dares assault my sacred morning—"
He sat up.Saw the apple.Saw the culprit.
Of course.
Bellona stood a few paces away, sunlight catching on her long light-brown braid and the red ribbon tied at its end. She looked unfairly alive for this hour of the day, smiling like a troublemaker in the midst of a masterpiece.
"Good morning, Vincent," she said cheerfully.
He touched his face, as if checking whether his dignity was still intact.
"You almost killed me," he declared.
"It was a very soft apple."
"That only makes it worse. I was mentally preparing to die peacefully under this tree."
Bellona laughed, bright and warm, as if the world itself leaned closer to listen.
"You looked dead," she said. "I needed to confirm."
"There are gentler methods of confirmation."
"Yes. But none as fun."
Vincent sighed as if burdened by the weight of being understood too well.
Bellona bent down and picked up two wooden practice swords. She twirled them casually, like she had been born holding weapons instead of toys.
"We're training," she said.
"I refuse," Vincent replied immediately. "I'm too young to suffer."
"You're fourteen."
"Exactly. Prime suffering age."
She tossed him one of the swords. He caught it, because fate had cursed him with reflexes that contradicted his dramatic statements.
He pointed the wooden blade at her.
"Just so we're clear, if I die, you're inheriting all my problems."
"I already have you," Bellona said. "What more could I inherit?"
Vincent placed a hand over his heart.
"That was uncalled for. Accurate, but uncalled for."
They stepped into the clearing.The wind quieted.The world grew sharper, as if curious.
Bellona lowered into stance.Her expression softened into focus — calm, serene, terrifying.
"Ready?" she asked.
Vincent grinned.
"No."
Bellona moved.
Not fast.Not slow.Just — precise.
Her first strike came in a clean arc. Vincent parried, barely. Her second came faster. He dodged, stumbling back a step, then another.
"Wow," he said, breathless. "You really woke up choosing violence."
"I woke up choosing progress."
"For me or for you?!"
"For both," she replied sweetly.
Her footwork flowed across the grass like water. Vincent tried to respond with grace; what he produced instead was a series of desperate, but surprisingly effective, evasions.
He ducked under one strike.
Jumped back from another.
Spun entirely by accident to avoid a third.
Bellona raised an eyebrow.
"You're moving well today."
"That's because I'm running for my life."
"That counts as training."
She advanced again.Fast. Too fast.
Vincent saw something — a shimmer along her blade, faint, like the echo of that blue light from earlier.
He blinked.The shimmer vanished.
Bellona's strike nearly took his ear off.
He dodged by luck and panic, rolled across the grass, and scrambled upright in a single motion that made him look almost competent.
"Did you just glow?" he demanded.
"What?"
"Nothing. Never mind. I'm probably dying."
Bellona pressed the attack. Their swords met again and again, wood clacking sharply in the cool air. Vincent parried more than he expected, dodged more than he intended, survived far more than he thought possible.
She was smiling now — a bright, wild, joyful smile.
"You're getting better," she said.
"I'm getting traumatized."
"That's the same thing."
Her final move came like a breeze.
A step.A pivot.A blur of motion.
Her wooden blade rested under his chin before he could even think of escaping.
Bellona tilted her head.
"And that's the match."
Vincent sighed with the gravity of someone who had fought valiantly and lost with style.
"I'm declaring this a moral victory."
"You're on the ground."
"Moral victory," Vincent repeated, louder.
Bellona extended her hand. He took it, letting her pull him up easily.
The world felt calmer now.Softer.But Vincent's gaze drifted once more toward the sky.
That strange shimmer…
He frowned.
"Bellona?"
"Yes?"
"If I start seeing things, promise me you won't hit me with fruit again."
She smiled.
"No promises."
Vincent groaned.
"This world is cruel."
"It's more fun that way."
And she walked ahead, sunlight glowing around her like she carried a piece of morning with her.
Vincent followed.Partly because he had no choice.Mostly because he wanted to.
****
The road split beneath the two old oaks, their branches leaning toward one another like ancient friends sharing the last whisper of morning. Bellona paused at the fork, her braid swaying with the wind, the red ribbon catching the light as if it carried a spark of the sun.
"See you tomorrow, Vincent. Try not to die doing something stupid."
"I make no promises. The world is plotting."
Her laugh rose like a warm note in the air, then softened as she climbed the path toward the upper district. Stone houses gleamed in the early sun, and before long her silhouette faded into them, swallowed by bright walls and polished terraces.
Vincent watched until she was gone.Then he took the opposite road.
The lower streets opened around him with a quieter rhythm. Houses pressed close together. Lines of laundry drifted in the breeze. Somewhere, a dog barked lazily. Someone argued about prices. The village breathed in warm, gentle pulses.
His own house sat modestly between two larger ones, a small white structure with a window that leaned a little too far to the left. He pushed open the door. The hinges sighed the way they always did, as if relieved to see him.
Inside, silence settled over everything.
He cleaned without thinking. A cushion straightened. A blanket folded. Dust brushed aside. Simple movements. Familiar patterns. Things that gave shape to the emptiness.
He filled a bucket and walked toward the well. The rope grumbled, the wood creaked, and the bucket returned filled with cool water that flashed silver in the light.
"Thank you for your effort," he murmured to it.
The market spread just beyond the well. Stalls stood beneath fabric awnings, and pale-blue vivacium lamps hung from wooden beams. The crystals glowed faintly even in daylight, not magical, simply steady and reliable, humming with stored energy.
A young man carried two heavy crates past Vincent. No aura. No fire. No frost. Just the quiet power of an awakened gift at work — strength granted by the heavens to those deemed worthy.
Vincent's fingers tightened slightly.He glanced at his hands.Nothing stirred.Nothing warmed.His own spiritual energy slept deep inside him, untouched, unmoved.
He let the thought pass and bought potatoes, two boiled eggs, a small pouch of steamed vegetables, and, after a careful pause, a pinch of salt. The vendor smiled knowingly, as if this tiny indulgence was a shared secret.
On his way back, he spotted Ravi, the guard posted near the archway. Ravi lifted a hand, his mustache twitching with amusement.
"Still alive, Vincent?"
"Barely. I've endured… extraordinary hardship."
"With Bellona?"
"With Bellona."
Ravi laughed.
"You're tougher than you look. And that mouth of yours keeps you in trouble."
"It's my most powerful weapon. I cherish it."
Ravi shook his head and waved him off.
Vincent continued toward the forge. The heat greeted him before the doorway did. Sparks danced around Master Lirian as the hammer came down again and again, shaping metal in rhythmic bursts.
"You again," Lirian said without turning. "Here to judge my work?"
"I like watching other people in pain. It soothes me."
The forgeron snorted, finally glancing at him.
"One day your strength will wake up."
"I hope it sends a warning beforehand. I'd like time to prepare."
Lirian chuckled, struck the metal once more, and Vincent slipped away.
At home he cooked a simple meal. Mashed potatoes, halved eggs, vegetables soft and warm, a sprinkle of salt like a tiny celebration. He ate near the window, watching the dust float lazily in the golden light.
When he stepped outside again, the sun was still high enough to hold the village in a soft embrace. Evening had not arrived yet. The world stretched unhurried around him.
Children played near the steps.A group of apprentices carried tools toward a workshop.Two women chatted about nothing in particular.Vivacium lamps shimmered quietly, giving the cobblestones a gentle glow.
Vincent wandered without aim.One foot. Then the other.Hands in his pockets, mind drifting.
Everyone around him moved forward.Everyone grew.Everyone awakened.
Except him.
He lifted his eyes to the sky.Soft blue. Thin clouds drifting lazily.And in his mind, the memory of the blue filament from the morning returned — sharp and strange, a sliver of something that didn't belong.
The breeze brushed the rooftops.A faint shiver traveled down his spine.
For an instant, he thought he felt something.A presence.A shift.A breath.
He wasn't sure.
He didn't dwell on it.
He kept walking softly through the quiet streets, the village glowing around him in the light of a day that refused to end.
Somewhere behind the calm, something unseen stretched slightly closer, like the beginning of a thread pulling toward him.
A thread he didn't yet notice.
A thread that had already chosen him.
****
Night did not fall.It collapsed.
One moment, the village outside his window was wrapped in the fading gold of evening; the next, darkness poured over it like ink spilled across a page. The edges of Vincent's small room disappeared first, then the walls, then the ceiling itself, until all that remained was a shapeless quiet.
He lay on his narrow bed, staring upward, hands folded on his stomach, the expression d'un garçon qui avait déjà trop pensé pour aujourd'hui.
His sigh drifted into the dark.
"Amazing. Another perfect day. Got humiliated, got bruised, ate steamed vegetables, contemplated the vast emptiness of my future. Truly, I'm thriving."
He lifted one hand, studying it as if it might reveal something new.
"Fourteen years old and already washed-up. Zero talent. Zero awakening. Zero prospects. I'm basically a decorative rock with legs."
His hand flopped back onto the mattress.
"Bellona will leave soon. Off to the capital. Off to the academy of geniuses. Off to shine and dazzle and be everything I'm not."
He paused.
"Meanwhile, I'll stay here. In my crooked little house. Eating my salted potatoes like a man of great destiny."
The bitterness rose slowly, like water climbing the walls of a sinking boat.
Then came the thought he hated most.
Bellona.
Her smile.Her confidence.Her strength.Her effortless brilliance.
She was the sun.He was a pebble in the dirt.
"I'm so stupid…" he murmured. "Falling for a star when I don't even have a ladder. I don't even have a stool."
He turned onto his side.
And that's when he felt it.
A shift.Tiny, but unmistakable.
The air pressed in slightly, as though someone had closed an invisible door. The shadows bled together. The darkness grew thicker, not brighter or louder—just more present.
Vincent's breath hitched.
"…What now? Did my ceiling finally decide to kill me?"
Then he saw it.
A point of blue.
So small he at first mistook it for a tear in his vision. But it pulsed once.Twice.A faint heartbeat of light.
The point stretched, ever so slowly, unraveling into thin luminous threads, weaving themselves into something delicate… and alive. A tiny star floated above him, suspended in air as if gravity had simply forgotten it.
Vincent froze.
"…Oh no. Not you again. Absolutely not."
The light shivered.
And then a voice appeared.
It did not speak the way a voice should.It arrived.It descended.Smooth, regal, velvet-lined, dripping with the arrogance of someone who did not ask to be obeyed—he simply was.
"Vincent."
His heart nearly ejected itself from his chest.
"I— excuse me? No. No no no. You don't just appear in my bedroom, float dramatically, and pronounce my name like you're introducing a king. Who told you my name? Explain. Immediately."
The star's glow deepened, as if amused.
"You mortals are so noisy. Your minds leak with an impressive lack of decorum. You whisper your fears, your regrets, your desires into the dark… and then you wonder why something hears you."
Vincent's jaw dropped.
"So you were spying on me! Mentally! That's illegal. Probably. In at least one moral system."
The star drifted closer, a lazy arc through the air, its light brushing his skin like cold silk.
"You have nothing, Vincent. Not talent. Not power. Not awakening. Nothing at all."A quiet hum rippled through the room."And yet you keep talking."
"Thank you," Vincent snapped weakly. "I love compliments that insult every fiber of my being."
The voice laughed.
Not loud.Soft.Almost beautiful.And unbearably condescending.
"It is precisely because you have nothing that you are perfect."
Vincent blinked rapidly.
"…Perfect for what? Being mocked by celestial lamps?"
The star brightened, an elegant flare like a noble lifting his chin.
"Perfect for a pact."
The room stretched.Not physically—more like reality itself took a breath.Space loosened.Time softened.Everything felt wrong and right at once, like stepping into a dream he didn't remember having.
"You," the voice continued slowly, "are the kind of soul most inclined to bargains. The desperate. The overlooked. The ones who have nothing left but a wish."
"I— hey— I am not desperate!" Vincent protested.Then, with far less conviction:"…Not that desperate."
"You are empty. And emptiness is a virtue. A flawless vessel. An unclaimed stage. A clean slate upon which power may be written."
Vincent held out both hands as if trying to physically push the words away.
"I am not a clean slate. I'm… I'm partially written! Hard to read maybe, but there's something there!"
The star drifted closer still, its glow washing over him.
"Your spirit screams for change. Your heart aches for recognition. Your mind dreams of a future you know you cannot reach alone. And you, Vincent… you yearn to shine for her."
His breath caught.
"Stop reading my mind! That's personal!"
"Then stop shouting your thoughts so loudly," the voice replied, amused.
Silence followed.A deep, velvet silence.
Then:
"I offer you a market. A pact of equals. Your body will house me. In return, I will grant you a fraction of my power."
Vincent stiffened.
"My… body… will house you…?"
"Do not be dramatic. I require a respectable host. Nothing more. And one day, perhaps, a few simple favors."A slow pause."Equivalent exchange."
The star brightened, shining like a small, arrogant sun.
"You will rise.You will grow.You will have what you lack.And in return… I will have a place to exist.A doorway.A voice.An anchor."
Vincent swallowed hard.
"Why me?"
"Because you have nothing. And nothing is the easiest thing to fill."
The entity's glow thickened until the shadows trembled around it.
"So, Vincent…"The voice curled around him, velvet and steel."Do you accept a bargain with me?"
His heart pounded.His throat tightened.The world seemed to tilt.
This was not a dream.Not a hallucination.Something impossible was waiting for his answer.
The light shimmered, patient and predatory.
"Think carefully.Those who reject miracles…are left with only their ordinary lives."
And in that suspended breath between two heartbeats, Vincent realized:
Everything—everything—was about to change.